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Favorite Racecars: Michael Cannon’s picks

Posted March 11, 2014

Michael Cannon has been one of the most highly respected race engineers in Indy car racing for 16 years, and knew from a very early age that motorsports was his destiny. His father, John Cannon, was a fine and versatile driver; his day of days came probably at Laguna Seca in 1968, when he beat the dominant works Can-Am McLaren M8s to victory using a two-year-old M1B. That same year, JC finished second in an Indy car race at St Jovite, defeated only by Mario Andretti.

Michael Cannon’s day of days may be yet to come. He famously turned AJ Allmendinger into a Champ Car winner, taking five victories in just nine races after they were thrown together mid-2006. After joining HVM Racing-Minardi Team USA, Cannon propelled rookie Robert Doornbos into the lead of the ’07 Champ Car World Series at the halfway point of the season.

Yet, looking back on it, Cannon describes 2010 – again with HVM Racing but this time with Simona De Silvestro as his driver – as his favorite year in Indy car racing…so far. This year, he replaces Bill Pappas at Dale Coyne Racing to become Justin Wilson’s race engineer.

As you’d expect, given his heritage, Michael’s choices of cars covers a wide range… “They kinda combine functional and sometimes game-changing designs that sometimes also please aesthetically,” he summarizes.

Auto Union Type C “A nation’s pride in what strikes me as a very elegant, balanced shape, at least to the eye. The drivers might have felt otherwise about its on-road balance. It was one of Auto Union’s revolutionary rear/mid-engined cars; Auto Union was the first to win with this configuration, and the Type C had a six-liter supercharged V16 producing 520hp – in 1936!”

Type C was the best of the Auto-Union breed, but it was never a docile machine, and it took Bernd Rosemeyer – a pre-war Gilles Villeneuve – to extract its best. He won five races and the 1936 European Championship, and won four events in ’37. Pictured TOP is Rosemeyer heading for victory at Donington Park, UK, in 1937, with teammate Hermann Muller BELOW showing off the distinctive proportions of the A-U at the same event.LAT photos

Chaparral 2E “Certainly a game-changing design. Not as ultimately successful as its contemporaries but a pretty car that bristled with new ideas. Plus Hot Wheels made a version of it; how cool is that?!”

BELOW It’s predictable that cars as innovative and high-tech for their era as the Chaparrals would be held in high regard by engineers, just as working for someone as technically astute and open-minded as Jim Hall would fire up the imaginations of similarly-minded staff. With radiator pods mounted at the rear, a huge downforce-producing rear wing that was foot-pedal adjusted to flatten out on long straights, and front ducts that closed to improve aero at speed, the 2E was way ahead of its time. It scored just one win, at Laguna Seca in 1966, and is pictured (center) back there in 2009 with Hall at the wheel, with a De Ferran Motorsports Acura to its right, and Gil de Ferran in the 2B on viewer’s right.LAT photo